Friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev use social media to express shock.

[Colophon]

@Jman

I was referring to the links above showing two of his friends mounting a “freeJohar” campaign on twitter. I love the one guy saying "This video of the firefight, you can hear him saying “Chill Out…we didn’t do it!”

That’s great and all…but then why do you a) have a bunch of guns, b) have pressure cooker bombs like the ones at the marathon that you then throw at the police and c) return fire?

It’s all part of the conspiracy, duh.

[Duke_of_Rat]

@Colophon

I skimmed through most of his Twitter feed, and if that reflected his public persona then I can see why people thought he was a nice and normal guy.

Reading it, he comes across as a totally normal teenager with a good sense of humour. Yeah, I’ll admit it, some of his tweets made me chuckle. He seemed like a funny guy. No sign of obsessiveness that I can see - a wide mix of teenage philosophising, bitching about school, teasing his friends, retweeting humorous pics and memes, you name it.

He rarely mentioned religion, although he did denounce people who equate Islam with terrorism in one post.

I’m not trying to defend him, by the way, just pointing out that if this was the personality he displayed to others, I can see why nobody would ever have thought him capable of doing this. If he had this dark side all along then he kept it pretty well hidden.

He was also a 9-11 truther, posted 10 days before he became a citizen:

Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job, I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots #gethip

[Telemark]

@Jman

I was referring to the links above showing two of his friends mounting a “freeJohar” campaign on twitter. I love the one guy saying "This video of the firefight, you can hear him saying “Chill Out…we didn’t do it!”

This is almost a No True Scotsman answer, but I suspect those two are either trolls or a bit unbalanced. The people I personally know who knew him are convinced he did it, but just can’t understand why.

[Colophon]

@Duke_of_Rat

He was also a 9-11 truther, posted 10 days before he became a citizen:

Aha - so that’s why they framed him. :dubious:

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Telemark

Very few people are protesting his innocence, they believe he really did it. They are expressing confusion at how someone who seemed so caring and nice in one aspect of their lives could be so heartless and cruel in another aspect. It’s tough to wrap your brain around that dichotomy.

“Sometimes you make decisions that you realize later weren’t as great as they seemed at the time.”

[LorieSmurf]

Fuck him. His brother talked him into it? Pshaw. My sister couldn’t talk me into MAKING BOMBS and murdering people. He made his own decisions, time to pay for 'em.

[voltaire]

@Jman

Hasn’t Dzhokhar essentially already admitted he did it? Early reports from his interrogation are saying that he stated that he and his brother were the only guys and that it was his brother’s idea.

I guess it’s possible that the investigators made that up and put it out there in order to put any potential conspirators off-guard by making them think they had nothing to worry about.

[Blaster_Master]

@drewtwo99

Nope and I could list probably at least 1 or 2 reasons anyone I know would do such a thing.

This, honestly, is depressing. I’ve known people who generally seemed normal and did some terrible things where I could see some warning signs in hindsight. I’m sure there are also many other people in my life that I wouldn’t expect to do some crazy stuff but, if they did, I might be able to look back and identify unnoticed signs too. But I think at some point, one ought to know someone well enough to be able to just know or else you realize that you just didn’t know them.

My closest friends I’ve known since I was like 14 or so, but I still have some casual friends and acquaintances from then too. If one of the latter did it, I’d be surprised that someone I knew that long did it and that I didn’t think they could do it, but I really only know who they were then, not really who they are now. For my closest friends, the only way they could be capable of something horrific like that is if they change very suddenly, which could happen, or I wildly overestimated how close we really are.

For his friends, I don’t know enough to make that judgment. It does sound like there was some swift changes, so that could be part of it, but maybe his closest friends weren’t as close as they thought they were and they’re left in shock. I really can’t blame them, stuck either believing that a close relationship was basically a fraud and then having to rethink every other relationship in your life, or grasping for random conspiracy theories to hold onto that world view.

[Gangster_Octopus]

@LorieSmurf

Fuck him. His brother talked him into it? Pshaw. My sister couldn’t talk me into MAKING BOMBS and murdering people. He made his own decisions, time to pay for 'em.

I pretty much agree with this. I do expect his brother was the driving force behind it, but the kid knew exactly what he was doing.